Finding the perfect match between Founder and Designer
The delicate collaboration between Founder and Designer
Your first Product Designer isn't just another hire — they're an extension of your startup's vision.
But, too often, there's a misalignment.
Clashes arise.
Tensions flare.
Designers depart.
Why? Because understanding isn't mutual.
The Founder's emotional attachment and strong vision for their product often clash with the Designer's approach.
So, how can Founders share their vision without feeling they're losing its essence? How can Designers truly innovate without dimming the Founder's dream?
In a startup, the fit between the first Designer and the Founders is critical.
Yet poorly discussed.
Fix that by knowing your Founder-Designer fit.
The Founders' relationship with their product is special. First, this is a domain where Founders spend a lot of time. There is an emotional attachment.
Founders have strong visions. They’re pushing hard to see their product vision happen. This vision is what brought them so far.
Why would they delegate it to someone who sees things differently?
Translate the Founder's vision into design
This involves the Designer taking the abstract ideas, goals, and vision of the Founder and turning them into tangible, visual, and functional designs that align with the startup's objectives.
Foster innovative solutions
Designers need to be the enablers of the Founder’s vision. While Designers must help Founders translate their vision into design flows and experiences, Founders must constantly nourish Designers with their dream vision in order to fuel the Designer’s creativity and concepts.
Focus on user problems
Founders have a deep understanding of their target market, the problem they're solving, and the value their product offers. If a Designer can effectively solve those problems, the resulting experience will resonate better with the intended audience, leading to fewer iterations and a quicker winning solution. Founders must constantly share and remind the Designer about the precise problem the company is trying to solve to nourish and focus the Designer on the right problem to solve.
Promote a cohesive product experience
A pre-PMF startup's product experience is often refined every quarter; it's the Designer’s responsibility to ensure the cohesiveness of the entire user experience across pivots. Designers must design for future flexibility and malleability while Founders must delegate the product design and understand the cohesiveness needs of the Designer.
Key learnings
Accurately translating the Founder's vision into design is fundamental in ensuring the success and effectiveness of the collaboration. Accurately translating the user’s problems into the product is fundamental in ensuring the success of the product, and in building a strong and coherent product experience.
→ A great Founder-Designer fit is when the Founder owns 80% of the product vision, the Designer 80% of the product design, and everyone owns 100% of the user problems.
Questions to ask yourself
What’s missing for the Designer to contribute to the product vision?
Where does the Founder’s design contribution stop?
What’s your strategy for sharing the understanding of your user problems?
Holistic understanding of the business
This involves the Designer comprehending and integrating knowledge of all aspects of the business – from its mission and vision to its operational and financial intricacies – into the design process.
Aligns Design with Business Objectives
While a visually appealing design is important, Founders expect Designers to think beyond just aesthetics. By understanding the broader business goals, Designers can create solutions that directly support and drive those objectives.
ROI-focused design
For many Founders, the design is an investment that should yield immediate returns, either in terms of product perception, user acquisition, retention, engagement, or direct revenue. Designers are often expected to create solutions that drive these business outcomes. Founders must continuously clarify and educate unfamiliar Designers about those foundations so that they create impactful solutions.
Optimize for learning
Understanding the startup’s schedule or resource limitations helps Designers prioritize their efforts. Understanding the technical cost of implementation helps Founders focus on what’s meaningful. Always choose cost-effective solutions, and avoid over-engineering or over-designing features that may not be validated by your users. Founders and Designer must simplify their proposals, designs, and flows in order to prioritize learnings and fast-paced iterations continuously.
When Designers demonstrate a deep understanding of the business, they're seen as more than just visual experts. They become strategic partners in the business's growth, earning the respect and trust of Founders and other stakeholders.
In the fast-paced and competitive landscape of startups, it's not enough for Designers to only deliver visually appealing outputs. They need to be strategic contributors, aligning their work with the broader business context. A holistic understanding ensures that design decisions aren't just beautiful, but also strategic, effective, and tailored to the startup's unique challenges and goals.
Key learnings
A great Founder-Designer fit is when the Designer is equipped to create for business impact, the Founder can align everyone on fast-paced iterations while everyone avoids over-engineering or over-designing and optimizes for learnings.
Questions to ask yourself
Is your Designer equipped to drive business impact?
What’s missing for the Founder to align everyone on fast-paced iterations?
Is everyone optimizing deliveries for learning?
Proactive collaboration and adaptability
In the unpredictable landscape of startups, the relationship between Founders and Designers goes beyond simply executing a product roadmap. It requires an active, two-way collaboration that blends adaptability with proactive feedback-seeking.
Iterative process
The dynamic nature of startups, influenced by market shifts, user feedback, and internal decisions, demands Designers to be receptive to foundational changes. This adaptability ensures that the design evolves with the startup's needs. Founders must evangelize on the unstable nature of the user needs, providing context to what’s foundation ground and what’s uncertain areas.
Ensures alignment
Regular feedback ensures that the design remains aligned with the startup's vision and objectives. This prevents significant rework later in the process when changes can be more time-consuming and costly.
Actively seeking feedback
This fosters a collaborative environment where all stakeholders feel involved in the design process. This collective involvement can lead to richer ideas and solutions. By getting feedback early and often, Designers can identify potential problems or misunderstandings and address them before they become major hurdles.
Open Communication
Central to this dynamic is communication. Founders appreciate Designers who keep them updated, raise concerns promptly, and are transparent in their progress. Similarly, Designers benefit when Founders set clear expectations, justify product decisions, and agree upon an ideal communication cadence.
Trust Building
A proactive approach to feedback signifies a Designer's commitment to excellence and humility. This not only builds trust but cements the Designer's position as a valuable partner in the startup journey, rather than just a service provider. In essence, the Designer's ability to actively seek feedback ensures that they remain in tune with the Founder's expectations and the evolving needs of the startup.
Key learnings
By understanding these foundational expectations, Designers can better position themselves as valuable partners to startup Founders, ensuring a more fruitful and enduring collaboration.
→ A great Founder-Designer fit is when the Designer is proactively seeking feedback to align with the Founder’s vision and user problem and when the Founder always clarifies the business context, the expectations, and can justify any product decisions.
Questions to ask yourself
Are the designs adapting quickly enough to the ever-changing landscape of our startup?
How often am I seeking feedback, and is it shaping our design evolution effectively?
Does our business context reflect a two-way understanding, or is it one-sided?
Am I justifying enough the product decision based on our vision?
Conclusion
Here is how to de-risk the Founder-Designer fit for your company or your future collaboration:
For Founders
Let go 20% of your product vision and let Designers contribute to it
Delegate design decisions to your Designer, and get used to it
Fuel your Designer with business context, and user problems
Focus on fast-paced iterations and optimize for learning
Always set clear expectations and justify your product decisions
For Product Designers
Help Founders translate their vision into design flows and experiences
Create solutions to user problems that drive business outcomes
Be receptive to foundational design changes to evolve with the startup's needs
Actively seek feedback early and promote a collaborative environment around your design
This part of the newsletter is a place for you to access
the most valuable links I’ve found this month.
Product of the month
Roadmap is the 6th most starred project on GitHub and is visited by hundreds of thousands of developers every month. It is a community effort to create roadmaps, guides and other educational content to help guide developers in picking up a path and guide their learnings.
I found it amazingly complete and an immense source of learning a few weeks ago. Thanks Eduardo!
Here is the start of your learning path for UX Design.
I’d be curious to understand if some of you already dived in and what was your experience.
Thank you for reading
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Frame the change.
Micka 🤙